PROSECUTOR TESTIFIES OF DOUBTS ABOUT DRUG LAB

Deposition Given In Civil Suit Filed By Fired Prince George's Police Chemist

The Prince George's County prosecutor who dropped a drug case in November
after a police chemist said she could not vouch for the drug analysis in
that case testified in a civil case deposition that she believed there may
have been problems with test results in other cases.

Assistant State's Attorney Toni Drake said the chemist, Kellie Lynn
Campbell, told her that the laboratory device used to test for cocaine may
not have been calibrated correctly and also that cocaine residue may have
produced false readings in other cases. Drake said Campbell told her that
she had retested results in those cases.

Campbell's allegations of misconduct at the Prince George's police lab are
at the heart of a controversy involving scores of drug cases. The county
public defender's office has asked for trials in dozens of cases to be
postponed, saying that prosecutors should have disclosed possible problems.

So far, the efforts have been unsuccessful. Last week, Circuit Court Judge
E. Allen Shepherd dismissed the public defender's request for the state's
attorney's office to produce detailed information about the police drug lab,
its equipment and its chemists, saying he would have to hear from Campbell.

Yesterday, Circuit Court Judge G.R. Hovey Johnson turned down a motion
seeking a hearing on the drug lab issue in a drug case scheduled for trial
tomorrow.

But Public Defender Joseph M. Niland has vowed to continue filing motions
seeking information on the drug lab with each judge in each case.

In an Aug. 13 deposition, which Drake gave as part of a federal civil
lawsuit Campbell is pursuing against the police department for firing her in
March, the prosecutor said she believed there might be problems with other
analyses by the drug lab.

"Just the issue of the calibration of the machine, and her retesting other
cases, so from that, I think that there were other cases that were
involved," Drake testified, according to a transcript of her deposition
obtained by The Washington Post.

Drake said she knew Campbell to be professional and truthful, according to
the transcript.

State's Attorney Jack B. Johnson said yesterday that Deputy State's Attorney
Mark K. Spencer and other top prosecutors met with lab manager John Porter
and other police officials Nov. 5, the day after Campbell made her
allegations. Prosecutors were assured that the lab's test results and
practices were sound and took police at their word, Johnson said.

"Our office was assured that the lab was running well and any problems in
the lab stemmed from Kellie Campbell, not the lab itself," Johnson said. "I
didn't ask for an independent audit. I take the police department's word for
everything in terms of the evidence we use."

Campbell's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, alleges that
she was fired because she tried to speak out about problems in the lab.

A police internal affairs investigation determined that Campbell lied to
prosecutors and police investigators and failed to prepare for a drug case
assigned to her for trial.

County Attorney Sean Wallace, whose office is defending the police
department in Campbell's civil suit, said Campbell's allegations are
"baseless and not to be believed."

When Campbell said Nov. 4 that she could not vouch for the results of her
tests, Drake asked a Circuit Court judge to dismiss a charge of possession
of cocaine with intent to distribute against Curtis Anthony Scott, according
to the deposition transcript.

Drake said she did not make defense attorneys aware of Campbell's
allegations because "I personally would not want defense attorneys to think
that there was a problem in the lab, because then they would attack the
cases not on the merits, but on what they perceived as something going on in
the drug lab per se."

Assistant Public Defender Janet Hart, who represented Scott, said yesterday
that Drake did not say why she was dropping the charge against Scott. Taking
issue with Drake's rationale for not making defense attorneys aware of
Campbell's allegations, Hart said, "Whether the substance is cocaine is a
substantial part of the case."